Sobre obesidade

The problem with diets that are heavy in meat, fat or sugar is not solely that they pack a lot of calories into food; it is that they alter the biochemistry of fat storage and fat expenditure, tilting the body’s system in favour of fat storage. (…) This might sound like a merely technical distinction. In fact, it’s a paradigm shift: if the problem isn’t the number of calories but rather biochemical influences on the body’s fat-making and fat-storage processes, then sheer quantity of food or drink are not the all-controlling determinants of weight gain.

The biggest mystery when it comes to obesity is not how to prevent it. It’s how to treat it. Don’t get me wrong. We need to know what expands our girth so that millions more don’t suffer the type 2 diabetes and heart disease that follow. But millions are obese, right now, and the medical establishment doesn’t really know how to help them.

Yet all this negativism bothers people, Dr. Allison conceded. When he talks about his findings to scientists, they often say: “O.K., you’ve convinced us. But what can we do? We’ve got to do something.”

To understand obesity, one must understand the concept of energy balance. Assuming that an individual has no problem with the absorption of nutrients, stored energy will increase only if energy intake exceeds total body energy expenditure.